Visuals (Continued)

Terrain mesh complexity. Slide this bar to the Right to increase the complexity of the outer lines of scenery shapes. This will improve visual quality (more realistic terrain), although performance may be reduced as a result. The further the slider bar to the Left the simpler terrain textures will appear (Less complex shapes), although performance will improve in such areas.

Terrain texture detail distance. Use this slider bar to set the range at which texture detail is applied to terrain. The further the slider is to the Right the further away it gets applied. This distance will affect performance & visual quality directly, i.e. Sliding to the Right will add detail at further distances away, which will reduce performance & vice versa.

Land class complexity. Move the slider bar to the Right to increase the amount of ground terrain types, e.g. Increased number of (differing) ground textures to give a more varied look to the land beneath you, although this can reduce performance. Sliding the bar to the Left will use a lower amount of textures, which will result in a less varied ground beneath, this can both reduce texture memory needed & improve performance.

Maximum unlimited visibility. This setting controls the maximum viewable distance in Flight Simulator 2000 if Unlimited visibility is selected for Weather visibility. I’d recommend setting this in the Weather settings instead unless you can sustain the performance hit associated with increased visibility.

Aircraft Shadows. Tick this setting to enable ground shadows for aircraft. Unticking it will disable the plane’s shadows. Shadows may come in useful for landing’s, although you will spend most time in the air (or at night) so I’d recommend Unticking this setting for a performance boost.

Ground Scenery Shadows. Tick this setting to enable ground shadows for buildings & dynamic scenery. Unticking this setting will disable these shadows, this will improve performance & they serve no really useful purpose (unlike Aircraft shadows which can).

Dawn/dusk texture smoothing. Tick this setting to enable Dusk/Dawn texture smoothing. This allows for a smoother graphical transition between sunrise/sunset. This will of course yield improved visual quality in these situations, although its uses are fairly irregular. Untick this setting to disable the smooth transitions, this will give improved performance during sunrise/sunset.

Smooth transition view. Tick this setting to enable smoother transitions between views modes. Unticking this will disable this. I’d recommend leaving this Unticked, performance may be improved slightly during view mode changes as a result.

Image smoothing. Tick this setting to enable the smoothing of jagged edges in scenery. This will reduce performance, although improve visual quality. Untick this setting to disable the jagged edge smoothing, this will improve performance.

Terrain transitions. Tick this setting to enable smoother transitions between scenery. Unticking this will disable this these smooth transitions, which should improve performance, although reduce visual quality during such transitional periods. I’d recommend leaving this setting Ticked.

Dynamic scenery. Tick this setting to enable dynamic scenery, Unticking it will disable such scenery. Dynamic scenery would consist of random scenery such as other aircraft, performance will be reduced slightly around such objects, although it adds to the realism of the game. I’d recommend Ticking this setting & using the slider bar to adjust the frequency of these instead.

Slide the bar to the right to increase the frequency of dynamic scenery during a flight. More dynamic models will result in reduced performance, although more realistic visuals (e.g. Other air traffic, boats at sea or other aircraft at an airport), sliding the bar to the Left will reduce the amount of dynamic objects, which can improve performance.

Scenery complexity. Use this slider to adjust the amount of scenery detail in the game, e.g. Buildings. Slide the bar to the right to increase the amount of scenery. More scenery models will result in reduced performance, although more realistic visuals (e.g. Cities will have a higher amount of skyscrapers), sliding the bar to the Left will reduce the amount of scenery, which will improve performance in built-up area’s (cities generally), although will look less realistic in the sense that scenery will be sparser.

With the latest patch installed 2 further options are available. Open your Fs2000.cfg with Notepad. Click on Search then Find. Search for [PANELS]. Underneath is a setting entitled IMAGE_QUALITY=x. A value of 1 for x enables bilinear filtering of aircraft gauges. This may reduce performance (when gauges are being displayed), however, it does make rotating gauges more easily readable. A value of 0 for x disables bilinear filtering of aircraft gauges. This may improve performance (when gauges are being displayed), however, it will make rotating gauges less easily readable.

Next, search for [MISCDATA]. Under this heading is a setting entitled USEPOLYCOASTDATA=x. A value of 1 for x enables a more detailed appearance for the coastline area’s (more polygons used). This will reduce performance in coastline areas, although the terrain near the coastline will be more detailed & more positionally accurate. A value of 0 for x reduces coastline LOD (Level Of Detail), i.e. Less polygons. This will improve performance in coastline area’s, although the terrain near the coastline will be less detailed & not as positionally accurate.

Remember, this setting is only effective in area’s with a coast & will have no effective on inland area’s.

 

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